A matching game maker lets you build a memory game where players flip cards two at a time and try to find every pair in as few moves as possible. With an AI matching game maker like VibeDream, you describe the cards, the pairs and the rules in plain words, play the game in a live preview a few minutes later, and share it as a link that works on phones, tablets and classroom laptops. What makes a matching game yours is what is on the cards, whether that is this week's spelling words or your family's faces. This guide shows how to set up both.
Two kinds of matching game
Before you write a prompt, decide which one you are making. It changes the cards.
- Identical pairs: two of the same card, like two strawberries. This is classic memory, good for young kids and pure fun.
- Related pairs: two different cards that belong together, like a word and its translation, a question and its answer, or a country and its flag. This is where matching games become a learning tool.
Related pairs need you to supply the pairs. Identical pairs only need a theme.
The prompt
For a classic memory game:
A memory matching game with 12 cards in a 3 by 4 grid, face down. Each card shows a fruit drawn in bright colours when flipped: strawberry, banana, grape, orange, cherry, pear. Tap two cards to flip them. If they match, they stay face up with a little pop. If not, they flip back after one second. Count moves. When all pairs are found, show a well done screen with the number of moves and the time. Big cards that are easy to tap on a phone.
For a learning game with related pairs:
A matching game for Spanish vocabulary. 16 cards, 8 pairs. One card shows the English word, its partner shows the Spanish word: dog and perro, cat and gato, house and casa, water and agua, book and libro, red and rojo, sun and sol, school and escuela. English cards are blue, Spanish cards are orange. When a pair matches, show both words together for a second. Show moves and time at the end.
VibeDream builds the game with Phaser, the HTML5 game framework, in a portrait layout with large tap targets. It adds a title screen, the game, and an end screen with your best result saved in the browser.
Use your own words or pictures
Words
Words are the easiest content to change. Paste your list straight into the chat: here are this week's 10 spelling words and their meanings, make them the pairs. You can change the list every week with one message, without touching anything else.
Pictures
By default, VibeDream games draw their art in code, using shapes, colours and text. That works well for fruit, animals, shapes and numbers. For real photos, such as family faces or your class pet, attach the images in the chat and ask for them to be used on the cards, then check every card in the preview. Smaller, square images work best on cards.
Good pair ideas
- Times tables: 7 x 8 and 56.
- Science: the planet and one fact about it.
- History: the event and its year.
- Languages: the word and its translation, or the word and a picture.
- Reading: the word and its rhyme.
- Office fun: the colleague and their desk plant.
For classrooms
Matching games are one of the most common things teachers ask for, because they turn revision into a game without much setup. A few things make them work in class:
- Keep it to 12 to 16 cards for most ages. More than 20 gets frustrating on a small screen.
- Make the face-down side plain and the face-up side high contrast, so cards are readable from an arm's length.
- Use a link, not an app. Students open the game in the browser on a Chromebook, tablet or phone. There is nothing to install.
- Make a new version for each topic. Remixing your own game with a new word list takes one message.
- Mind names on the leaderboard. If you ask the game to let players type a name for the scoreboard, tell students to use first names or nicknames, not full names.
If you want a whole-class game on the board instead of everyone on their own device, a Jeopardy-style quiz board is usually a better fit.
Make it work for young or new players
A matching game is often a child's first game on a device, or a quick break for someone who does not play games at all. Small choices make a big difference for them.
- Use colour and shape together. A red circle and a blue square are easier to tell apart than two shades of one colour, and they still work for colour-blind players.
- Keep text large and short. One or two words per card is plenty on a phone.
- Slow the flip-back down. Two seconds before unmatched cards turn over gives younger players time to remember.
- Celebrate every match, not just the end. A small pop and a happy sound keep a five year old going.
- Offer an easy mode with 8 cards and a normal mode with 16, chosen on the title screen.
Turn moves into a score
A matching game naturally measures moves and time, where lower is better. The leaderboard on a VibeDream play page ranks top scores, where higher is better. So convert the result into points:
When all pairs are found, score = 1000 minus 20 points per move over the minimum, plus 5 points for every second under 60. Never go below 0. Show the score, the moves and the time on the end screen.
Now a fast, careful player gets the top spot, and the score is a single whole number that the leaderboard can compare. Play it a few times and adjust: if everyone scores near 1000, make the penalty bigger.
Share and score
When it is ready, press Put it online. Your game gets a vibedreams.ai link and its own play page, where a leaderboard shows the top scores next to the game. Share the link in a class page, a group chat or a QR code on the wall. Teachers who sign in can remix it into their own version with different pairs, so one good game can serve a whole department. For a page that holds a game per topic, see how to make a game website.
Bugs to check before a class plays it
Tap through a full game yourself and try to break it the way a seven year old would.
- Tapping a third card while two are still face up. It should do nothing until the first two flip back.
- Tapping the same card twice. It should never count as a match with itself.
- A pair that does not match. With related pairs, check every word and its partner, since one typo makes a pair impossible.
- The same layout every round. Ask for the cards to shuffle each time a new game starts.
- The end screen never showing. If one pair is missing a partner, the game cannot finish. Count the cards: the total should be twice the number of pairs.
Make it harder, or make it different
- Add a timer and lose if it runs out.
- Shuffle the remaining cards every 30 seconds.
- Add a second round with more cards.
- Turn it into a two-player game on one device, taking turns, where each pair scores for whoever found it.
- Make it a match-and-pop puzzle, where matching three in a row clears them.
When you have one game you like, try something with a different rhythm: an idle game with upgrades, or an arcade game with a high score. For how these browser games work and where you can host them, see our HTML5 game maker guide.